By Arrangement (31 page)

She hadn't known that Edward had renewed his plans about France, but then she hadn't left this house in weeks because of her illness. Margaret had visited her several times, but Margaret had no interest in court gossip or politics and so had told her nothing. Nor had David until now.

Perhaps there were no rumors yet. Perhaps David only knew because the King had told him.

He only travels to a trade fair
, she told herself firmly.
John Constantyn goes with him, not Sieg
.

He placed his hand on her knee. She looked down at it, so exciting in its elegant strength, so warm despite the sheet between their flesh. That quivering intensity that always emanated from him seemed especially apparent this morning.

“This cannot go on,” he said. “You cannot stay here.”

They had never spoken of that day nor of why she feigned this illness. A part of her had hoped that they never would.

“That is what Morvan said. He came to me at Westminster and said I could not stay there. Now you say it about this house.”

“Nay. I say it about this chamber. I'll not see another woman buried alive in it.”

“Then give me some money to pay servants and I will go live in Hampstead. I will repay you from the farm rents.”

A glint of anger glowed in those blue eyes before he suppressed it. He slowly shook his head.

His hand still rested on her knee, beckoning her with its warmth, offering her its pleasures. Better if he had just
carried her upstairs last night. Better to have never put words to what was happening.

“What are you saying, David? Are you ordering me to my duty?”

“I am asking you to return to our marriage and our bed.”

“What about Stephen Percy?”

“We will put that behind us.”

“You still do not believe me, do you? But you kindly forgive me. That is most generous of you, but I neither want nor need your forgiveness.”

“Perhaps I want and need yours.”

“I do not know if I can give it,” she whispered, as memories of that day drifted into the space between them. “Even now, as you ask me to come back to you, I know that you just find that you have need of your property and resent being denied it. It may be the way these things always are, but I do not think many women have to hear it so frankly stated and then live with the truth in such a naked way. Perhaps that is the reason for dowries. To give women some other value in marriages so that their dignity is preserved.”

That exciting hand rose from her knee and stroked her cheek above the bunched sheet with which she shielded herself. It rested there, and its warmth flowed into her and down her neck. “We both spoke harsh things to each other. I think of no person as property, Christiana. Least of all you.”

He leaned toward her. She knew that it would not be a simple kiss of parting and that she should turn away, but she could not even though the connection would bring her anguish. The warm touch, the quiet voice, the intense blue eyes had made her defenseless. Sensual memories during the night had left her tired body half aroused. His kiss lingered and deepened and she could not fight it
because something inside her, apart from her reason and her hurt, hungered for him.

He kissed her as if the world had ceased to exist. Gently, almost lazily, he bit along her lips. The nips and warmth stunned her. He slowly pried his tongue into her and she parted her mouth stiffly, accepting him with a hesitation her trembling, anxious body didn't feel at all. The heady intimacy of this small joining washed over her and submerged her resentment and hurt.

A small internal voice cried a warning, but her appalling, forceful longing ignored it. She released one hand's hold on the sheet and awkwardly embraced the shoulders leaning toward her.

They kissed again tentatively, like first-time lovers finding their way. Then slowly, carefully, as if each touch revealed something precious, he pressed his lips to her neck and shoulders. Her whole body tremored with grateful relief at the repeated warm contact of that mouth.

She opened her eyes and found him looking at her, and she guessed that he could, as always, see everything and knew that her traitorous body had vanquished her resolve. She silently begged him to stay and also prayed that he would not.

“Come here,” he said, reaching for her. He lifted and turned her and set her on his lap, resting her head and shoulders on the support of one arm while his other one embraced her to him. She still clutched the sheet and it followed her, trailing over her body as it twisted from the bed. Despite the sheet and his clothing, she felt his warmth and strength and sighed at the closeness. Her buttocks pressed against the hard muscles of his thighs and her hip felt the hot ridge of his arousal. It had been months since he had held her, and she lost herself in a mindless fog of connected warmth.

Cradling her in his arms, he lifted her to a hungry,
probing kiss. She felt his passion overwhelm his restraint of the last weeks. Her barely controlled desire also broke loose of her tenuous hold. Her last clear thought was an indifferent awareness that she would pay for this pleasure with pain.

With her free hand she encircled his neck and pressed him closer, asking for more, encouraging him. Her long abstinence had made her shameless, and she would not let him end the deep, frantic kiss. His embracing arm loosened and she moaned into him as his wonderful hand caressed her bare back and hip.

He broke the kiss and looked down into her eyes. His gaze lowered and his fingers traced down to where she still grabbed the top of the sheet.

“It did not help you much that day in the wardrobe, darling,” he said quietly. “Let go now.”

He spoke of the sheet, but he also meant much more. He softly stroked her clutching hand until her fingers relaxed beneath his seductive touch. She turned her face into his shoulder as he eased the sheet from her grip and slid it away. Cool air alerted the skin of her entire body.

She knew that he looked at her as he so often had done, only now she felt suddenly shy and stunned by a furious anticipation. She gritted her teeth and buried her face harder in his shoulder.

He kissed her neck and his quiet voice flowed with his breath into her ear. “Do not hide your face from me, Christiana. The desire that we feel for each other is a wonderful thing. I want you to watch me as I give you pleasure.”

Gently he turned her face to his and forced her to meet his gaze. He had not even touched her yet, but that aching need already tensed her belly and a hot insistence throbbed between her legs.

She watched as he demanded. Watched as he cradled
her and kissed her breasts and moistened their hard tips with his tongue. Watched as his fingers slowly traced along her breastbone and teased in a circle. Her breasts swelled beneath that wandering touch, anxious, begging, and her consciousness focused on nothing besides her silent, breathless urging. His fingers slid to one moist nipple. She saw her body arch toward that devastating touch, and then she saw little else. Incredible sensations and single-minded desire obliterated all thought.

He aroused her as if time didn't matter, as if no one awaited him in the courtyard and no journey beckoned. Her breasts had never been so sensitive, and his deliberate caresses raised excruciating pleasures. When his strong arm lifted her shoulders and his mouth replaced his hand, the delicious need he created with his lips and teeth became consuming and painful.

He lifted his head and looked down her body. Her own dazed eyes followed. His hand splayed over her belly, his light golden skin contrasting in a compelling way with her creamy whiteness. He pressed down, stilling the rock of her hips. He caressed her thighs and they both watched that hand's progress. Her breath shortened to a series of low sighs.

“I am thinking that it is in my interests to leave you ill contented,” he said softly as his hand trailed over her body. “Abstinence is a powerful enhancement to passion. I do not think that you would remain ill too long after my return.”

She barely heard this frank assessment of her condition and resolve. She watched and felt his hand follow the crevice where her legs joined. Stabs of heat distracted her.

“But I find that I cannot do it,” he said, “I have missed your passion and would at least have that from you this day.”

His gaze claimed her attention, and his words penetrated her stupor. He kissed her beautifully. “Open to me, darling,” he said while his fingers touched the soft mound of hair.

She had been waiting for him to rise and turn and lay her down. She had been waiting for the intimacy of his body along hers and the obliteration of her choices. She realized that he had never intended to use her desire against her like that today.

She hesitated, and almost said, as he made her say that first time, that she wanted him.

“Open,” he commanded gently. His fingers caressed so close to her need that her breathing stopped and that hidden flesh pulsed. “There is no defeat in taking pleasure from me thus.”

She had no resistance. She closed her eyes and parted her legs and accepted the relief he offered. It did not take long. He touched her slowly and gently as if to prolong the ecstasy, but her body already cried for release and each touch sent lines of frantic sensations through her until soon she felt the incredible tension wind inside and she thrashed and stiffened and exhaled sounds of mounting desire. He pulled her shoulders to him and held her firmly, kissing her ferociously while he pushed her over the edge into fulfillment, taking her cries into himself when the violent climax finally crashed through her.

He held her in a tight embrace for a long while, his face buried in the angle of her neck and shoulder. She awoke from the delirium to find her hands clawing the garments at his chest. She doubted that he had found satisfaction in this.

He loosened his hold and looked down at her. She noticed a little blood on his lip where she must have bitten him.

Silently he rose and laid her down on the bed. He caressed her face and looked into her eyes. “I must go.”

He had contented her, but her deeper desire still burned. She almost urged him to stay longer and to finish what had begun. The choice would not really be hers then.

He left. Left her with the proof that he possessed the power to seduce her back. Forcing would have never been necessary, this parting visit had said, because this gentler persuasion had always been available to him and would be in the future. For a while longer the choice would be squarely hers, though. He had left her to decide if she could live this marriage and come to him, once again, of her own will.

She gazed at the blue pleats billowing above the bed. Aye, maybe she could. During that brief submersion into pleasure she hadn't thought about anything else, not even what she meant to him. Only later, when he left, had the pain and doubts closed in. In time perhaps they would cease to torment her. In a few years maybe her love would only exist as an amusing memory.

She should leave this bed now, before she fell asleep. If Emma found her upstairs in the morning, the whole household would assume that her illness had ended and Joanna's room would cease to be an option. No choice then. She smiled at how greedily her soul grasped at the possibility for self-deception.
Stay here, fall asleep, and it is done. An accident rather than a decision.

The bed had lost its strangeness and a delicious relaxation claimed her. Even as she admonished herself to leave, her lids lowered. She surrendered to the prideless love that would accept any pain to be close to him and would gratefully accept the small part of himself that he chose to give her.

She did not know how long she slept, but suddenly
her eyes flew open. A sound had penetrated her dream, prodding her out of her peace. She raised herself on an elbow.

A large dark shadow moved past the window nearest the wardrobe door.

“David?” she mumbled, wiping her eyes.

A strange presence filled the chamber. She heard soft, scuffling footsteps. The shadow moved, and two others joined it.

Suddenly alert with shock, she started to scream. The large shadow lunged toward her. Strong arms pinned her down while rough hands pried and shoved a cloth into her mouth.

She thrashed violently against the suffocating gag. More hands pressed on her until she became immobile. She stared up into strange faces barely visible in the moonlight while her heart pounded wildly in the renewed silence.

“Now you be calm, my lady, and no harm will come to you,” a man's voice said softly, just inches from her ear. Not an English voice, she considered as she jerked motionlessly against the restraining hands. Scottish.

One hand released her and a glint of steel appeared in it and waved in front of her eyes. “Listen carefully. We will let you up, but there be three of us here and armed at that, so do as I say. You will go into the wardrobe and dress and pack some things for yourself.”

Pack? These men planned to take her someplace. Where and for what possible purpose?

Her mind frantically assessed her danger. How had they gotten into this house with its surrounding wall? Where was Sieg?

“Do you understand? Don't raise your hands to the gag.”

She dumbly nodded. The hands fell off her one by
one and the talking man eased away. Shaking with terror, she slid out of the bed, grateful that she had not lit a candle and that these men could not see her naked body very well in the moonlight.

She staggered on wobbly legs to the wardrobe, trying to control the panic that threatened to cloud her mind of all reason and sense. Despite their warnings, she wanted to run and run and let the terror consume her as she did. She rashly decided that in the blackness of the wardrobe she would remove the gag and scream for help.

Upon entering, she saw the door to the garden open. Enough light seeped through to make the lines of her shadow visible and her actions obvious.

They watched as she fumbled for a loose gown and pulled it on. One of the men found a small traveling trunk, and she stuffed clothing into it, not knowing what she grabbed.

Thrusting her feet into shoes, she turned to them. She tried to remain calm although the deathly panic still wanted to unhinge her. Her only hope was to keep her wits about her. If Sieg still lived, he would save her when they tried to leave. She would make as much noise as possible on the courtyard stones in hopes of awakening him and the others.